The Pudding Menu with Gurdeep Loyal: newsletter volume 2.0
A very jolly calçotada, the OG Moro, the best cheese I've ever had, wearing the scent of blue ink on white paper, and how The Avalanches are like Luciano Berio
It’s volume 2.0! Which means statistically I’ve doubled the number of issues of this newsletter since it began a week ago (celebrating small victories is very 2024). If you missed volume 1.0 you can check it out here. Don’t forget to subscribe - and tell all your friends/family/polyamorous situationship lovers. Gurdeep :)
New(ish)… a calçotada at Parrillan, Borough Yards
The Gran Festa de la Calçotada heralds the beginning of calçot season in the town of Valls, Catalonia every year. As someone with something of a ‘thing’ for very charred alliums - (nurtured in a childhood of going to Indian restaurants in Leicester every week, where all the best dishes came on lava hot sizzling onion hot-plates that took off your finger tips at a touch) - photos of the annual fiesta always fill me with joy. It’s quite the feast by all accounts, the calçots piled high on top of metal grills in the streets, fuelled by the fire of grapevine branches, to be charred to a crisp before being wrapped in newspaper to steam.
Last week I was invited to a very jolly calçotada somewhat closer to home - at Parrillan, Borough Yards - a banquet of Catalonian proportions with some exceptional wines to boot.
I didn’t know the ritual of calçot eating before the lunch: first you tie a protective white napkin-bib around your neck - then you select whatever scorched scallion catches your eye with two fingers at the base - you raise it high into the air to inspect and show off to everyone - then you dunk it into a bowl of smoky romesco - slather liberally all over - lift into the air again - tilt your head back and devour in one! Dripping sauce down your front is greatly applauded… that means you’re doing it properly.
January is peak calçot season and they’re getting rarer in London in seems - so if you find any in farmers markets, now really is the time to recreate this oniony fiesta at home. As an afternoon-cap we had ‘Eduardos’ in adjoining Bar Daskal which were a delicious revelation. A potent concoction of Hart Brothers manzanilla, palo cortado sherry, blended vermouth, bitters and a cherry for good measure. Short, sharp, punchy and strong. My kinda drink - and very much my kinda feast.
Parrillan Borough Yards, 4 Dirty Lane, SE1 9PA @parrillanlondon
Bar Daskal, 16 Park St, SE1 9AB @bardaskal
Oldie but a goodie… Moro, Exmouth Market
Apparently, 2024 is the year of the noughties restaurant revival, which if it brings back any of my old favourites i’m very supportive of. When I first moved to London in 2005 I had a list - originally titled ‘THE LIST’ - of places that (in my mind) were key to my culinary education. It was very much a manifestation board of sorts and about once a quarter, we’d save up a months salary, get spruced up in a our Topman plaid shirts, Doc Martin shoes and Burton blazers, and book lunch at one of them as a treat.
Many places on that list no longer exist: The Providores, Tabla, Alistair Little, L’Atelier de Joel Robochon, Fifteen, Hix Clerkenwell, Sake No Hana, Hibiscus. But there is one from the original list that endures to this day, and that I think - in spite of the trillions of new openings that this year will see no doubt - deserves to be high on everyone’s list for 2024… the original Sam & Sam Clark Moro on Exmouth Market.
The first time I went was something of a disaster owing in large part to three of the six of us eating - including me - having been to either The Cross, Egg or Fire the night before (probably all three… hey, it was the noughties…). But I returned a year later for what was one of the best meals i’ve ever had in London - a culinary journey with Moroccon-Spanish-Southern Mediterranean vibes - that packed loud attention grabbing flavours in an unassuming, understated and effortlessly buzzy space.
The more ‘trendy’ Morito is on my doorstep, but I like to go back to the OG Moro (that’s been going since 1997) about once a year. What struck me most on my last visit a few weeks ago, is how incredible an achievement it is to create a restaurant that feels completely contemporary every time - and has done for over 20 years - whilst staying essentially the same that entire time. ‘Forever relevant’ really is something to aspire to.
Moro, 34-36 Exmouth Market,London EC1R 4QE @restaurantmoro
Delicious design… INK by Perfumer H
The Crawford Street Perfumer H has to be one of the chicest boutiques in London. To date, my go-to spritz has been SMOKE, RHUBARB and INDIAN WOOD - mixed together in a fragrant flavour chord of sorts.
The one that got me most excited on my visit to their new Mayfair store in Clifford Street last week was INK: “…the cerebral scent of blue ink on white paper that conjures late nights in dimly lit libraries. Papyrus India, vetiver Haiti and cedar wood fused with elemi Iran and rose, with hints of ambroxan and isobutyl quinoline.” No, me neither - but it’s an intoxicating scent none the less.
It also comes in this hand-blown blue ink bottle - which is engraved in gold and insanely beautiful.
Perfumer H Mayfair, 15a Clifford St, W1S 4JZ @perfumerhlondon
Kitchen hero… Rouge River Blue Cheese from Oregon
This one year in my Innocent Drinks days, I was co-president of the Innocent Cheese Club. It was a job I took extremely seriously and that entailed organising a monthly artisan cheese based lunch, where one cheese would be crowned the winner - culminating in ‘The Grand Cheese Off’ at the end of the year where all the winners would battle for the best of the year.
The year I was co-president, the winner of the big cheese-off was an American cheese from Oregon called Rouge River Blue from Rogue Creamery. It’s a cheese that was in fact officially crowned the greatest cheese on earth at the World Cheese Awards in 2003, and the taste of which I’ve never forgotten. It really is very very extraordinary.
I’m not sure I can even begin to explain it, so in their own words…
APPEARANCE: Grape leaves encase an antique linen-hued paste with toile-style bluing
TEXTURE: Fudgy and rich, with calcium lactate crystals that develop with age
TASTE: Pear brandy, vanilla, toffee, truffle, and fig, with pronounced “blue” flavor
It has a very short season, and I think only a hand-full of rounds ever make there way to London. But it IS available at La Fromagerie right now.
La Fromagerie, 2-6 Moxon St, London W1U 4EW @LaFromagerie
For pudding… on the genius unoriginality of Luciano Berio and The Avalanches
Most musicologists, academics and contemporary classical music snobs regard the 3rd movement of the ‘Sinfonia’ by Luciano Berio as the greatest composition of the 20th century. Not sure I entirely agree - it’s no Britten Young Apollo, VW riffing on Thomas Tallis or Fiona Apple Carrion - but I do love what Sinfonia stands for.
Berio was reacting against Schoenberg and Stockhausen - the most prominent musical figures of the time - who both believed they’d invented new musical languages through their total abstractions of tonality and rhythm.
The Sinfonia’s 3rd movement is in fact not quite a ‘composition’, but more a musical ‘collage’ stitching together fragments of the Scherzo from Mahler’s Symphony 2, Debussy’s La Mer, Ravel’s La Valse and Daphnis, Berg’s Wozzeck, the sublime ballroom waltz from Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, bits of Bach, Stravinsky, Hindermith, Beethoven - and then to really dig his claw in, Schoenberg's own Five Pieces for Orchestra and even Stockhausen’s Gruppen.
His point is that there is no such thing as pure originality when it comes to art - everything is derivative of something. All art is a product of its past, be that five hundred years ago or five seconds ago - everything in the present is in eternal conversation backwards and forwards with history. Like recipes in many ways, I suppose.
Contemporary versions of this musical mantra include any hip-hop that samples anything else (which is most of it), Radio Soulwax 2ManyDJs, and I think my favourite of all, The Avalanches who’s seminal album 'Since I Left You’ was effectively Berio made pop. Frontier Psychiatrist remains one of the most brilliantly avant-garde songs to every chart in the UK - reaching number 18 in 2000 - and giving us one of the most wonderfully unhinged music videos ever.
Towards the end of Berio’s 3rd movement, one of the many speaking voices recites passages from Beckett’s ‘The Unnamable’ which I’ve never read but bought recently to try to get a deeper perspective on Berio (and because i’m drawn to anything pretentious with a typographic cover)
Three pages into it’s bafflingly disjointed monologue I can’t imagine I’ll be getting much further. But then that might even be Berio’s point: if there’s no such thing as originality, embrace all sense and all non-sense, mash it up together, and taa-dahhh! A new masterpiece of unoriginality. Now that really is original.
And for pudding wine… The Condé Nast Traveller New Restaurant Awards
Really excited to share the news that i’ll be one of the judges in the brand new Condé Nast Traveller UK’s Top New Restaurant Awards.
Watch this space for more news soon! @condenasttraveller
Petit fours…
Red Pomelo, Hibiscus and Cinnamon Cider Vinegar Shrub anyone?
Patou’s black satin bolero jacket. Need to get to Paris post-haste.
Pizza Hotdog. I love this Insta account muchly.
Yes, And? Has 2024 pop peaked already? Can’t stop singing it.
Just posting about you on my post scheduled for tonight xxx
I had totally forgotten about Sake no Hana. Such a great place with so many memories. My husband used to supply them and we had so many wonderful meals just standing in the kitchen chatting with the chefs. Especially loved their Sunday brunch.